President Donald Trump’s obsession with bashing major media outlets not named Fox News continued on Thursday morning when his Twitter crosshairs trained on Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.
In the inflammatory tweets, Trump claimed Brzezinski and Scarborough stayed at Mar-a-Lago for three nights around New Year’s Eve and insisted on joining him while Brzezinski was “bleeding badly from a face-lift.” (If you recall, Trump has a history of making sexist remarks about women bleeding from parts of their bodies).
“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came…” Trump tweeted, shortly later adding: “…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”
I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017
…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017
Brzezinski wasted no time in hitting back at Trump.
— Mika Brzezinski (@morningmika) June 29, 2017
MSNBC also issued a statement following Trump’s tirade.
"It's a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job"
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 29, 2017
And even Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska appeared to subtweet the president, calling his attack “beneath the dignity of your office.”
Please just stop. This isn't normal and it's beneath the dignity of your office.
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) June 29, 2017
Thursday’s outburst against Morning Joe was just the latest in a string of frantic tweets about the media over the past week.
On Wednesday, Trump lashed out at the Washington Post and Amazon—in a tweet filled with inaccuracies—claiming that the tech giant didn’t pay ‘internet taxes,’ which do not exist.
Before that, he went after the New York Times for writing “false story after false story” about him, adding that the paper didn’t call to “verify the facts” of a story—a claim that was quickly debunked by staffers at the paper.
Earlier this week, Trump went on a rampage against CNN after it retracted a story regarding a close ally being connected to the Trump-Russia investigation. In the tweetstorm, Trump brought up other media outlets he perceives as “fake news,” including NBC, CBS, ABC.
Trump’s bashing of CNN was also the lynchpin that sent Tuesday’s White House press briefing into a spiral.
When the subject of his outrage over the story was brought up by a Breitbart writer, it sparked a heated exchange between Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and a reporter over the state of modern journalism, prompting her to tell the American people to watch a video produced by a man known to selectively edit videos in an attempt to further his own narrative.
Sanders said people should watch it while admitting she wasn’t sure if it was accurate.
Update 11:47am CT, June 29: Speaking on Fox News following the tweets, Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said there have been an “outrageous” number of personal attacks against Trump, prompting him to “push back.”
“This is a president who fights fire with fire, and certainly will not be allowed to be bullied by liberal media and the liberal elites within the media or Hollywood, or anywhere else,” she said.
Sanders went on to say that she had seen “far worse” attacks on Trump come from Morning Joe than his Thursday morning tweets.
Asked about Trump's Mika tweets on Fox, Sarah Sanders says, "This is a president who fights fire with fire" pic.twitter.com/np0rVHvMvC
— David Mack (@davidmackau) June 29, 2017